"More than four years after Sri Lanka’s ethnic-fueled internal conflict came to an end after 26 years, the country has yet to implement a viable plan for lasting peace and reconciliation.

A train carrying the Channel 4 news team, who were traveling to Kilinochchi, ground to a halt at Anuradhapura this morning, as it became mobbed by a crowd of over 100 protesters shouting and carrying placards in Sinhala.

“They're not giving my brother. We are not even allowed to catch a glimpse of him to know he's safe. Why are they not letting us see him? You allow so many Sinhalese to go, but you won't let Tamils go?"
 

“It may be astonishing to some that even on the eve of CHOGM, the Sri Lankan government feels free to abuse rights at the heart of the Commonwealth charter. But such government repression of civil society was expected."

"Commonwealth leaders must not just turn a blind eye.”

Australia’s Prime Minister Tony Abbott and Foreign Minister Julie Bishop "should take care do not whitewash Sri Lanka's human rights record" by attending the Commonwealth summit in Colombo this week, a senior Human Rights Watch official said Wednesday.

In an opinion published in Australian newspapers, Elaine Peason, Deputy Director of HRW’s Asia Division, said:

“What is … regrettable is Australia's blindness to Sri Lanka's human rights concerns. Australia seems to be reluctant to admit human rights violations as a means of deflecting asylum claims of Sri Lankan Tamils coming to Australia by boat.

 

“However, in the long run what will really stem the flow of illegal migration from Sri Lanka is a government that respects the rights of its people.

 

“Australia can either choose to look the other way, implicitly endorsing Sri Lankan abuses, or it can use this opportunity to support efforts for accountability and democracy in Sri Lanka.

 

“British Prime Minister David Cameron will attend [the summit], but his government has said he will deliver a ‘tough message’. At a minimum, Abbott and Bishop should do the same.”

Writing in The Independent newspaper, Sandya Eknaligoda, wife of a Sri Lankan journalist who disappeared after criticising President Rajapaksa’s government, called on the international community to oppose Sri Lanka’s imminent chairmanship of the Commonwealth